Representative Politics Is Dictatorship

Representative Dictatorship Is Not Democracy

I know a young lady who was elected for the first time in California. She is sent to a posh resort for a week to learn the basics of her new job, being a “Democratic” politician. Everything is wrong with this picture (not just the mansion she lives in and her million dollar family income, while claiming to be a leftie). Everything is wrong, but it’s typical: all elected representatives in the USA are treated very well, and get to meet who, it dawns on them after a while, can insure for them, and their families, much nicer lives. (The New York Times, to its discredit, just discovered this PACS trick in 2014.) How many states? 200 St? Yes, But Just One Republic Of Off-Shore. And it’s not restricted to China:

Republic Of Off-Shore, Invisibly Dictating To All

A gigantic manipulation industry has developed, with its own strategists. Barack Obama seemed to have come out of nowhere, but, even before he started to score big, he was viewed as the anointed one, by the highest powers in “Democratic” circles: Axelrod, a professional manipulator who had just led Kerry’s campaign, was sent to Obama, just a modest Senator. Obama then gave a keynote speech at the Kerry convention, etc. When he campaigned, Wall Street money started to flow, more than towards any other candidate, by orders of magnitude, etc. No wonder Obama has found so hard to bite the hand that fed him.

The USA has 320 million inhabitants, 550 representatives in charge of legislating. That’s roughly one representative for 600,000 people.

In Switzerland the ratio is one to one: one citizen, one vote for legislating. Banks had found harder to buy the citizens, and the reserve requirements there, are roughly eight times what they are in the corrupt rest of the West.

I call the ratio of how many legislate for how many they claim to represent, the DEMOCRATIC INDEX. In a democracy, it’s one.

In the USA, for 600, 000 citizens, there is just one vote for legislation. It’s democratic index is roughly ZERO.

So Switzerland is 600,000 times more democratic than the USA, at the legislative level.

In truth, it’s way worse than that, because representatives, in the USA, are bought by the plutocrats (see Obama, Barack, above). That is why, right now, the banks and the financiers leading them, are doing with legal impunity things that would have sent them to jail eighty years ago. Because, recently, plutocrats and their agents bought enough legislators, around one thousands Senators, Congressmen and Presidents, to repel the law, the Banking Act of 1933.

It’s also why the tax code’s length and complexity exploded under Obama: so that legal thievery could exploit all that fine print.

Representative politics has got to be eliminated. Switzerland has eliminated it at the legislative level.

Why can’t all other countries of the West do the same? Because the present plutocracy rules through the representatives, especially in the USA. Thanks to their control of the media, they have made it so that normal, decent people sincerely believe that it is reasonable to feel that they are living in democracy.

However, the present day USA is closer in many ways to North Korea’ s present dictatorship, than to democratic Athens, 25 centuries ago..

After we have done away with representative dictatorship in the legislative realm, the executive could also be democratized.

Enough to be led by clowns playing Darius, 23 centuries later.

To handle the executive along democratic lines, we don’t need very much imagination. There are Roman Republican lines and Athenian lines.

The Romans opted for ferocious, extreme checks and balances, all over: if you were eligible for this, you were not for that, and if you had wealth, it could not be more than the equivalent of a few dozens of millions. Roman Consuls, for example, had full power only for one month at a time.

The Athenians just stuck to democracy. In Athens enormous quora (a minimum of 8% of the potential electorate) had to be found, before any decision of the National Assembly (where all sat, and all talked), could be reached.

Nowadays, of course, with the Internet, We The People could be constantly, and thoroughly consulted. By the way, polls show the following: if this Internet direct democracy was implemented in the USA, the country would become very progressive in a matter of days.

So ladies and gentlemen, this is the way: fight for direct democracy. The alternative is ever more plutocracy, inequality, inequity for this circus led by clowns who know just one thing: military and secret services, media and games, tax free corporations, and respected illusions, are all what they define as goodness, their power, rests on.

Obama wants to jail Snowden to satisfy the law of the strongest over the spirit of democracy. Just as when Manning revealed a war crime, he had to be punished, according to the law of the strongest. Might is all the right might needs (By that token, Hitler’s prosecution of the anti-Nazis was fully justified.)

In democracy, We The People rule, and lead. But this will not happen before They The Clowns leave the stage of power. What does history say? That will not happen without violence. Do not just brace yourself, call onto the coming struggle as the physical and mental activity that we need for health. Not just physical and mental health, but civilizational and ecological health. Sitting is the new smoking.

18 Responses to “Representative Politics Is Dictatorship”

Strong words. Possibly your strongest words since I started reading you. Makes me regret that I wasn’t born an American. Wasn’t a younger man. For to see this Nation set the lead in the manner you so passionately express would be glorious.

My fear is that I will not. That Mother Nature’s power over all our futures will soon make the aims and aspirations of the citizens of this country irrelevant. Not just this country. Of the planet. Period.

Dear Paul: Thanks. I’m afraid that it will turn out the way you describe, with Mother Nature taking the lead, with catastrophic developments (the summer-winter of California this year being an inkling of an example: it was 72 Fahrenheit, 26 Celsius, after sunset two days ago, in Sacramento).

When one sees how badly the USA took 9/11, the creation of its own creature, bin Laden, further dictatorial developments are to be feared.
PA

Doesn’t representative government really arise from historical problems of transportation and communication? When it takes days or weeks to travel to the capitol, OK plebiscites are impractical.

But when you’ve got, e.g., the internet and jet planes, is there really a need to invest individuals with the authority to speak for the group and send them off to a far away capitol to be wined, dined and seduced by the plutocrats’ lobbyists? To take only the most obvious example, many Members of Congress effectively live in their districts now, not Washington, showing up only in the middle of the week in DC.

Of course, the right wing’s drive to make voting ever harder (by ID requirements, disenfranchisement, fewer polling places, etc) gives the game away.

What I am saying is that “representative” government as it is now practiced is an anachronism like unto the British “rotten borough” system.

The argument that we need to have all the intermediaries we do now to “protect” us makes no sense.
Except Mafioso sense.

Athens, BTW, had problem because of high quora, and the fact farmers had to travel beyond one day journey to vote. In the end, voters were paid when they had to travel to vote, or had to stay away from work.

Nowadays, all these objections vanish. And if the NSA and Barack are threats to the Internet, well, they need to be impeached. More exactly what need to be impeached is money in politics first.
PA

I am not sure what patrice will say, but we use highways. Highway men were hung high and dry, sometimes in cages where they sang for a few days for the pleasre of passerbys. Was done in England
NSA is just a bunch of gangsters, Obama their prophet. When they all go to jail, the world is a better place.

One of the goals of representative government is to preserve the idea of each man having one vote and protect the interests of minority stakeholders.

In direct democracy there is the possibility that a large majority under the influence of some charismatic demagogue could enact very destructive policies.

The solution in the US was proportional representation in the lower chamber of Congress and absolute representation in the upper chamber. It is intended that legislators and their staffs would be experts in the laws they are enacting.

Of course, the whole mess is now corrupted by money, but I don’t think this is due to an inerent problem with representative government but a lazy and uninformed electorate.

When that lazy and uninformed (misinformed) electorate takes direct control of government, it is possible that its flaws will be magnified even further making things worse. If we want better government it is important that we become better citizens.

Reagan, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama are certainly, first of all demagogues. Next question?

OK, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, even Mao were certainly demagogues too. So there are demagogues, elected, or not. Starting with the principles that we need tin can dictators to be experts ruling us makes the “electorate” lazy and ill informed. After all, they are asked to elect their dictators!

Look at Switzerland carefully. About 90% of proposed votations end up differently than what they were evaluated to be scoring when the electorate has to make up its mind. Results? Very good “votations”. All of them, except the one on minarets (I like minarets, which are just classical church towers).
PA

You are probably right, Patrice. Just remember that Switzerland is a small European state. I don’t see small US states like Delaware (geography) or North Dakota (population) or Rhode Island (both) stepping back from representative government anytime soon.

Thanks for telling me, Alexi, that I am probably right.
Although I am SURE to be right, it’s always a good feeling to be comforted that way.

Various remark: Of course Delaware, world’s general headquarters of plutocracy, is not going to step off its own gravy train. All the more as it risks prosecution. North Dakota is bathing in oil, and whatever is left from its fracked mind, is fracked all over. Rhode Island is probably in pluto service business.

Switzerland is a completely different civilization. It does not have pluto service as its avocation. Direct democracy works splendidly there, although Switzerland is about 30 to 50 times larger in population than Athens at her peak. (Or at least 25 times, depending exactly the model used.)

If it works in Switzerland, it can work in France (hence Germany). The real difficulty with France, is that France is actually a super power, and, more exactly the most aggressive one known. Military quick draws are hard to make compatible with direct democracy.

But, of course, what I propose is to start with the legislative, and achieve, as in Switzerland, legislative direct democracy. That can be done anywhere. Take California. In California, right now, the infrastructure exists, but people (activists) are discouraged, because propositions were money-defeated (that’s impossible in Switzerland).

As far as the executive is concerned, a collegiate executive (as in Switzerland) would be as effective to lead France. Ultimately, in France, the president does not do anything if the military does not agree to it, anyways, so there is an underlying collegiate decision-making.

Even the much derided, and much divided Third Republic declared war to Hitler! If the democracy had been more direct in 1939-1940, as it was in 1944-45, it’s likely that France would have had more overwhelming forces in May 1940. Just a fully equipped Fourth Heavy Armored division (division blindee lourde) would have cut the panzer army from behind. Actually the best planes would even have been armed (as the People would have trusted, even the Communists) and the Luftwaffe would not have achieved air superiority.

So, really, direct democracy is only a plus (notice that nobody invaded Switzerland in WWII, although the US Air Force bombed it).
PA